Game changers: 12 technologies that changed everything

New technologies emerge all the time, but only a handful change everything that follows in their wake. And they're not always the first of their kind.

For example, Gottlieb Daimler may have invented the prototype gas engine vehicle in 1885, but it wasn't a game changer.

Henry Ford's 1912 Model T was the game changer because it made mass-produced cars affordable to ordinary Americans. And that in turn affected everything from where we live and work to the sustainability of our planet's natural resources.

For good or ill, the following 12 technologies changed our lives--and sometimes entire industries--in ways both simple and profound.